Diskless BOINC Farms [Archive] - AMD Users.com

Evil-Dragon

03-02-2007, 01:08 PM

The BOINC website has posted the following story yesterday that might be of real use to those that have computers without hard drives or wish to run boinc without installing boinc to a machine:

March 1, 2007
With BOINCpe[/URL] you can run a dedicated BOINC machine using a RAM disk, starting from only 256 MB of total RAM. This lets you operate a BOINC farm more energy-efficiently or to use machines without hard disk drives for BOINC.

You can get BOINCpe here: http://blog.schreiter.info/index.php/boincpe-livecd-for-boinc/ (http://boincpe.schreiter.info/)

Direct download: [url]http://www.schreiter.info/download/boincpe/BOINCpe_beta_v0.4.0.zip

I have not tried this yet but if anyone is willing to give it a try then it might be beneficial to the group.

mitchellds

03-02-2007, 02:26 PM

Is anyone using Boinc account manager right now within our team? Does this let you control clients kinda like the Boinc View program, or is the BAM made more for controlling projects?

drezha

03-02-2007, 06:36 PM

I used BAM. I liked it. BOINC view was useful for monitoring but BAM worked and did what it was supposed to.

Bender10

03-03-2007, 12:05 AM

I got BOINCpe up and running for a test on TANPAKU.

Werks. I did not go through BAM, I just set the Tanpaku HOME profile to do what I wanted.
Using:

GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz w/ 512 ram (it's all i had setting around)

WU run times look normal...

AMDave

03-03-2007, 12:06 AM

Just a point of caution

Of course, you need a proper license for the Windows version you are running (XP Home is sufficient).

Bender10

03-03-2007, 12:16 AM

Ooops. It would help if I added some details.

I kept getting this error from the server:
'not enough disk space(only xx.x MB free for boinc).'
This value changed as I adjusted the disk space used %.

In the Tanpaku "home" profile

I had to change the: Use no more than 50% of total disk space to: 100%

Not sure why. This may have to do with the 128M default memory setting in BOINCpe. I haven't found how (or if) to change that. Needs to be larger. Or at least 200Mb?? 256 maybe??

Or maybe the disk space setting has to be at 100%. I'm having a slow time of it weeding through the setup and config stuff......

Bender10

03-03-2007, 01:06 AM

This is a pretty sweet operation.

Just download the BOINCpe_beta_ file.
Unzip.
Put a windows XP install cd in the cd rom.
Put blank cd in burner.
Run PEbuilder.
Boot diskless machine with cd, and poof (oops...poof bad)...I mean ta-da!

If you use a RW CD. You can go back and play with the PEbuild setup files. and burn another one until you get what you want....

Bender10

03-03-2007, 04:09 PM

Well, my BOINCpe finished its wu's. It looks like they finished and uploaded with no errors. This looks like a cool alternative....

jmblazek

03-03-2007, 10:01 PM

This is good news. Bender10, keep us posted with your progress or any problems you encounter. Also, are you able to test the "PXE/BOOTP network boot" or the "booting from a USB stick/key" options?

This might finally be the best solution to the minimal BOINC cruncher on windows...

1. CPU
2. Motherboard, onboard network
3. RAM
4. PSU

...of course there's K12LTSP but I found that setup a bit overwhelming.

Bender10

03-04-2007, 12:41 AM

The BOINCpe may not be the best, but it is real easy. Too bad it's not built on Linux.

I werk on this stuff here and there. The BOINCpe was easy. All the work is done for us. It works right out of the box. Just tweaking if you want.

I'm in the middle of moving to a new house (since xmas). We have been held up by cold weather. Working hard this weekend as the weather is nice.

I've already switched the comp I was using back to normal operations. I'm going to piece together a chassis for the BOINCpe and play with it a bit, when I get a couple of minutes. I'd like to get this to boot from a flash drive.....and finish my new server....play bf2142....move furniture....organize gaming room....shovel driveway....take out trash....work on a NAS....install cabinets in basement....clean windows....get linux box back on-line....

Bender10

03-06-2007, 12:31 AM

Did a little werk this evening to setup a disk that will have my custom settings (network, workgroup, comp name, dns, archiving, multi cpu settings, etc) for my X2 4200.

I just have to dig out the network drivers for the onboard lan...

Bender10

03-10-2007, 01:06 PM

Is anyone using/looking into BOINCpe?

I may have mine on-line tonight. If that happens, I can retire a slow intel and an amd (slot A) box...

Lagu

04-05-2007, 11:07 PM

As you all know the OS on my AMDAthlon64, 3200+ has been reinstalled why I now downloaded the latest Boinc-client 5.18.15.

Benchmark:
2207 Floating points (Whetstone) per Cpu
3929 Integer MIPS (Drystoe) per Cpu

Should I use Crunche3r or is it not an good idea? I have noticed before an optimised client has little favour or are I misstaken?:icon_confused:

gatekeeper53

04-05-2007, 11:16 PM

I haven't been able to find a project that it helps all that much on. What will help is to up the speed on the 3200. I have one that is doing great at 2420 MHz at stock voltage and cooling and the benchmarks are better. I just brought the FSB to 220 with a multiplier of 11.

Lagu

04-05-2007, 11:40 PM

gatekeeper53

04-06-2007, 12:08 AM

You could up the V-Core volts but 2376 isn't to bad. I just don't feel like I'm getting my moneys worth if I don't OC. lol Of course I just had to pay for a new motherboard in my 5 month old laptop because I OC'd it. So please don't pay to much attention to me.

Bender10

04-26-2007, 06:32 PM

Is anyone using BOINCpe? I guess I'll fire this up again as a long term project.

I got a couple of boxes of parts a few days ago (new x2 4800). I guess I'll do some werk on the BOINCpe again. I sort of abandoned it for a while...

I'll start a thread if anyone is interested....

Nflight

04-26-2007, 10:33 PM

I must have missed this post before, just what is this new fangled Boinc OS?
I found this link not very helpful: http://boinc-wiki.ath.cx/index.php?title=BOINCpe

Am I on the right track ?

Bender10

04-26-2007, 11:08 PM

That's good info. The following site has all the instructions and where to get downloads...

http://blog.schreiter.info/index.php/boincpe-livecd-for-boinc/

Jason1478963

04-27-2007, 02:35 AM

I have overclocked the AMD from 2,2 Ghz to 2,376 MHz. I tried 2,398 ut the computer didn´t like it and made a restart instead.
FSB from 216 to 218 seems be a little step but no it always fail. I dont know what is wrong. I have 2 new twin-memorys. Before I had 2 different.:icon_wink:

From the overclock information I have read there is a fair amount of settings you should change to get the maximum overclock out of Athlon 64 chips. the HyperTransport(LDT) multiplier, memory multiplier, PCI bus... (I had hard drive issues until I locked my pci bus) some ppl also relax the memory timings with higher FSB speeds.

your DDR would be running DDR432 and HyperTransport would be 1080 I believe. If your bios has multipliers/dividers for these settings you may be able to get a little more if you want to play with things. I am not an expert but I do like to try and see what some chips will do.

Bender10

04-29-2007, 06:58 PM

I did some more work with BOINCpe today. Here's where I am..

According to their support people, 'Since BOINCpe is running a stripped down XP, most DC projects could be run on the BOINCpe platform'.

So I tried this...

Booted my new X2 4800 with the BOINCpe CD. Connected to my file server, and ran the D2OL install package. D2OL was installed on the 'RamDrive', and is crunching along quite nicely (1 instance so far). I am also running BOINC at the same time.

1 Gig Ram (256 mb RamDrive), and a CD-ROM..:icon_rolleyes: ..not bad.

BOINCpe does not come with a browser, so you have to type in the project address (for BOINC) to 'Attach' to a project (no cut and paste). A browser can be added to the CD image, that's next....

**I also just installed RealVNC...now it's headless AND no HD!!

Lagu

04-30-2007, 12:48 AM

Very nice tecnique. Did you do a clean install? Can you tell if D20L or Boinc are running faster using RAM memory only?

Lagu:icon_wink:

Bender10

04-30-2007, 02:25 AM

I'm going to do a side-by-side comparison with another 4800 in the next day or so...most likely on D2OL or PrimeGrid.

** I started a D2OL (dual) run this morning...

Bender10

04-30-2007, 07:37 PM

Lagu,
I don't think there will be an increase in speed running diskless. I'm just back on my kick of building an inexpensive 'Cruncher'. There should be a small power usage reduction also.

This is not new. There have been 'diskless' seti/other farms around for years. This approach is just real easy IMHO, to setup and manage.

If this will parallel (it should) the performance of a well stocked computer (maybe OC'ed a little :icon_rolleyes: ), why buy all the extra crap. If I (we) can purchase a cheep ($15) CD, Motherboard, dual core CPU, Ram and a case w/ psu for ~$350 (X2 4800) and crunch away, Cool!! True, the price of HD's is way down...

Of course, if you want to build the best and baddest, that's great too.

But, I don't need to play games, surf, or whatever on a cruncher...That's what my 1 expensive box is for..:icon_mrgreen: And If I want to give the 'diskless' computer away in the future, buy a HD and OS of the day and voila...

Lagu

04-30-2007, 08:06 PM

Ok, understand:)

jmblazek

04-30-2007, 09:34 PM

If I (we) can purchase a cheep ($15) CD, Motherboard, dual core CPU, Ram and a case w/ psu for ~$350 (X2 4800) and crunch away, Cool!!
Howdy Bender!

I still keep tabs on your progress and look forward to your latest results. I know this isn't your goal right now but as you know, you can save another $15 for the CD if you can successfully implement PXE/BOOTP network boot or booting from a USB stick. :)

That puts total costs around ~$335 which is ever closer to the $300 threshold.

Keep up the good work!

p.s. I'm also curious about the wattage used in your diskless system. Here's a list I got from TigerDirect. I don't know how outdated it is...if anyone cares to update it, that would be great!

Component Wattage Required
Motherboard 15-30
Low-End CPU 20-50
Mid To High-End CPU 40-100
RAM 7 per 128MB
PCI Add-In Card 5
Low To Mid-Range Graphics 20-60
High-End Graphics 60-100
IDE Hard Drive 10-30
Optical Drives 10-25

Bender10

04-30-2007, 11:00 PM

Hi jmblazek,

I have not looked into the actual power reduction for this setup yet. That's good info, I'll start looking around.

I know this diskless thing is not new territory, but this application (BOINCpe) is kinda interesting. And it will play on a 'Flash' drive (with a little work), but PXE is an option that has not been explored..yeti..

Right now I'm having a problem getting the on-board Lan to work. Lucky I have a box of 3com cards hanging around...They run on anything. I have to isolate the correct weird nVidia driver.

The great thing so far is you seem to be able to run any DC software on this by just loading it on the 'Ram' drive. The instructions were not too clear on this point. The instructions mainly deal with the ability to add software to the CD image itself.

drezha

05-01-2007, 01:37 AM

You could use this to help.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Scooter

05-01-2007, 03:30 AM

The way I did with my just crunching computers is stick a little old 3.2GB hard drive in it with XP .....gives that old hard drive a little more life cuz it wasnt doing anything else anyway .....recycling works well for me !!!

Bender10

05-01-2007, 12:31 PM

Well, I don't see any large increase/decrease in crunch times (didn't think I would) :icon_wink: . I just compared this to my other 4800. All times in Tanpaku and PrimeGrid are about the same. I didn't think there would be any difference.

The only glitch (workable) is with the reduced XP OS, there might be some .dll's missing that may be required by some apps. BOINCpe Tech Support will help in adding these to the 'default' image. Right now the default 'Image' is about 175 Meg.

People are using this as a 'crunch' platform for BOINC. And now I know it will run (most) any DC app that will play on XP. Works for me. I just have a few tweaks to work on.

1. Back up the 'Ram' drive to the network to avoid loss of data in case of a shutdown. I just have to get the network drive assignment right...

2. Boot from a 'Flash' drive, maybe...

3. Work out the on-board nic driver problem. Always a pain...

4. Add DC apps to the CD image. This will save 'Ram' drive space and not require manual loading of the non-BOINC projects I want to run. :icon_rolleyes:

Bender10

05-01-2007, 04:47 PM

drezha,

I ran my confuser through the calculator, BOINCpe and 'Normal' setup.

BOINCpe-----300w psu required. (2 fans, CDROM, on-board video)
Normal-------370w psu required. (just added a HD and pci-e video card)

Interesting estimate....

Bender10

05-05-2007, 04:24 AM

BOINCpe again. :icon_razz:

I got the 'network share' thing working. BOINCpe provides a way to 'backup' the BOINC folder manually and during a user controlled shutdown. All that is required is the 'network share' to be identified and included in the 'persistency service'.

This service will backup the BOINC folder once every day. So, at the most you will lose 24 hrs. of data if the system crashes. The 'persistency service', stores data by mac address, and searches for that address to restore the data.

drezha

05-05-2007, 09:23 AM

Sounds very similiar to the Folding diskless I've run but that backed stuff up every hal hour or hour (But it was based on Linux and I believe it used rsync which is a fantastic command that only transfers whats been changed in a file, thus small network bandwidth)

Bender10

05-05-2007, 10:35 AM

Could be, I know they are not mapping new territory here. I think this is just a re-write of an old idea to provide simple 'diskless' computing to the windows segment of DC. This software has other abilities that I have not touched on yeti. :icon_mrgreen:

I think its worth a spin. If it's gonna crunch, why bother with all the windoze 'bells and whistles'? The biggest part is getting the system to recognize a NIC. The rest is a piece of cake!

my .02

I can post my cheat sheet of settings that I have used for the .bat and .ini files, if someone wants to play with this also... :icon_rolleyes:

Bender10

05-11-2007, 07:02 PM

I just had a "Hard Drive" event with my "Diskless" BOINCpe TEST Box. Yes, I had a stupid Hard Drive in it...:rolleyes:

Well the hard drive failed, and locked up the computer. I shut it down, removed the offending piece of junk, rebooted and was back to normal in less than 5 minutes. With no loss of data. Cool...:icon_mrgreen:

LeBo

05-12-2007, 08:42 PM

Hey Bender10, did you ever get the onboard NV Lan to work. That's my problem also.

Bender10

05-13-2007, 02:23 AM

There is a list of plug-ins available on the BARTpe page. There is one for the NV Lan driver there. There are many plug-ins created by other users, you may have to look around. I forgot where in there I found it. I just haven't got around to trying it out. Maybe early this coming week.

Let me know if you try it....before I get to it.

LeBo

05-13-2007, 04:08 AM

I am now running it on a 2 Gig flash drive. Boots up and runs on it, no running drives what so ever.:icon_wink:

Bender10

05-13-2007, 11:41 AM

That's Great!!. :icon_thumright:

I guess I should head down to Staples....:icon_rolleyes:, and buy my wife a couple of 'Mothers Day' gifts....

Actually a 256 or 512 will work, due to the size of the image/files. And the size of the programs you install.

I still only have 1 box on BOINCpe. My other 2 are still running off hd's. I should have these on BOINCpe by the end of the week. Maybe on sticks....

Nice Going!

drezha

05-13-2007, 12:11 PM

Actually a 256 or 512 will work, due to the size of the image/files. And the size of the programs you install.

If I didn't use this as a desktop I'd manage to run off a 64Mb USB key :icon_wink: Damn Small Linux with folding. Requires more play than BOINCpe I would assume.

Damn, now I want an old system to play with now:icon_lol: I sold all my systems bar my new desktop and my laptop.
My dig out the old laptop:icon_razz:

LeBo

05-13-2007, 04:47 PM

I would really like to set it up to boot up then monitor it with BAM. I want to run it headless and diskless . BTW when you get your BoincPE made just run a prog called
PEtoUSB, I'll get the web site and post it

http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb

drezha

05-13-2007, 05:06 PM

I think when my exams are over I'm going to break into my old laptop case, remove all the items that either no longwer work or aren't needed and have a go installing BOINCpe.

Bender10

05-13-2007, 05:31 PM

LeBo

05-13-2007, 08:20 PM

I think I will give RealVNC a try.

LeBo

05-18-2007, 03:03 PM

I run mine headless now. I just install RealVNC (ultravnc would not load) to the ramdrive. With a 256 mb ramdrive, There is plenty of room for software.

I've taken a few shortcuts to get this to work (the way I want). I am slowly solving the problems, and using the 'plugins' instead of loading software to bypass an issue.

Hey Bender, how did you you get it to run headless. I am set up to run with no hard drives or CD Rom drives. I am booting and running off the flash drive with a ram drive. All th work is done in the ram drive. BTW, I am controlling them off UltraVNC. I also need a plugin for a wireless Linksys WUSB54GC usb nic. I am setting up a flash drive with Bartpe for non Bionc and one for Bionc with Boincpe, both with 512 Meg Ram drive.

Bender10

05-18-2007, 04:49 PM

You have to disable the Bios "Halt on Error" or whatever your Bios has for that type of thing.

How did you get Ultravnc to load? I kept getting a file error. Is there an extra file to load?

Did you find anything that helped on the Bartpe site (for drivers, etc?).

Flash drive? Oh, I understand. I had not thought of that. Boot up "Bartpe" to run non-Boinc. That works. You could also just disable BOINC from starting, use the BOINCpe shell....And still have all your "Plugins".

Good Work!

EDIT: The nic drivers are easy to install. You don't have to put them in as a plug-in. I think they can just go in a folder...Let me look tonight. Or this:

"Q: My network adapter (NIC) is not recognized while booting up BOINCpe. What to do?
A: Probably your NIC is pretty new. You simply have to add your Windows driver to the directory .\drivers\Net. Please also have a look at: BartPE: Adding drivers"

This is from BOINCpe FAQ's....

LeBo

05-18-2007, 05:26 PM

The driver setup that I downloaded from Linksys is an *.Exe file. It is wanting to install into my setup machine not BartPE.

LeBo

05-18-2007, 05:33 PM

How did you get Ultravnc to load? I kept getting a file error. Is there an extra file to load?

Good Work!

This is from BOINCpe FAQ's....

I downloaded the binary (not setup file) drivers file from the UltraVNC web site and unzipped them into the files folder under the UltraVNC plugin folder under BartPE.

Bender10

05-18-2007, 05:38 PM

You should be able to use Winzip to view this file (i just did) and extract the required files.

Bender10

05-18-2007, 05:40 PM

When I looked in the Ultravnc folder, it looked like everything was there. I'll do the download.

elec999

07-08-2007, 07:21 PM

Is there anyway to get this on a usb stick.
Thanks

Bender10

07-08-2007, 07:42 PM

You will need a utility called "PeToUSB".

http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb

Run PeBuilder as normal, but just create the image file (Tell Pebuilder where to save it on your C:\ drive). You do not have to burn it to a CD.

When you have created your 'Image' file, Run PeToUSB to transfer the 'Image' file (I hope you remembered where PeBuilder put it :icon_mrgreen:) to the USB Drive and you are done.

Insert your USB Drive into the chosen computer and Boot up (your computer bios has to be set to boot from the usb...)!

LeBo

07-08-2007, 07:43 PM

Is there anyway to get this on a usb stick.
Thanks

Yes Check this site out it will make the USB stick bootable. It's called PE 2 USB

http://www.gocoding.com/

elec999

07-11-2007, 05:20 AM

Bender10

07-11-2007, 10:00 AM

Well, your computer has to be able to boot from a usb (it should be a selection in the 'BOOT' section of your computer BIOS). If it will not do that (recognize a usb as a boot device), you are stuck with CD-ROM boot.

Have you successfully created a 'Bootable' BOINCpe CD-ROM? The process is a little tricky. And you can test the CD in any working computer without screwing up that computer. If you have a 'working' CD image. That image will work with PeToUsb.

The last thing is, PeToUsb seems to have problems recognizing some USB drives (i'm using some sandisk 1 gig micro cruzers) . You have to read the info on the PeToUsb download site.

The stuff works. You just have to stick with it.

Bender10

11-17-2007, 11:49 AM

I just ran into a minor Glitch with my BOINCpe boxes. I have them set for a Ram Drive of 256 Mb. This has been working fine until last night.

I was attaching to Cosmo to run a few wu's off this weekend. But I ran out of Ram Drive (or maybe just Ram?) space :-( . I got a BOINC (Cosmo?) transfer message that I needed another 450Mb to download the required files.

Well, I'm running on 1 Gig of Ram. But a few days ago, I picked up 3 more Gigs to augment my crunchers. So, I'll add the ram this weekend, and see if that solves the problem.

These boxes all run from a 1 Gig Thumb Drive. But that space is only used by the OS and programs installed on the Thumb Drive...

I may also have to upgrade my BOINC version while I'm at it...

mitchellds

11-17-2007, 12:11 PM

Hey Bender,
I ran into the same thing with Cosmo using BoincPe and a 1gb thumb drive. Cosmo is a hog for both memory and diskspace. I switched to a 2gb thumb drive and expanded the ram drive to 1.5gb. Even then I only able by adjusting the local boinc pref to run only 2 cores of the 4 cores on this quad cpu, due to the high memory demand. If I ran more than 2 cores, I'd get errors in the WU's sometimes that were generating.

After toying with this a bit, my conclusion is that you need more. I think a 4gb thumb with most space alloted to ramdrive would do cosmo fine on a quad. Also, as a note, I used the imdisk plugin to get the expanded ramdrive working.

As a side note, I ran other projects on this same setup, like Rosettta, Seti, WCG, etc. and they ran fine. Cosmo was the picky one due to its hog like nature.